More Ron Eade at Large

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Every year at this time I like to haul out my state-of-the-art Fibre-Based Information Retrieval System (er, pencil-and-paper day calendar) to consider the wealth of significant food-related events we can expect in the year ahead.

Fans who can hardly wait for Real Sports Bar & Grill to open this November in the ByWard Market can get a sneak taste of its signature chicken wings and sauces this weekend at an annual garden party fundraiser for the Ottawa Humane Society.

I found myself ensconced recently in the haute cuisine EPIC restaurant, off the lobby in the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, where as you may imagine the cuisine is creative, always fresh and, these days, deliberately local.

Up near the clouds on the roof of the Fairmont Royal York, the Honey Moon Suite is buzzing as literally tens of thousands of worker bees living there forage through Toronto’s urban canyons looking for, of all things, nectar to make honey.

The Ottawa-based charity that delivers potable water to developing countries is taking on a distinctly domestic flavour this Canada Day, with a new Canadian six-course fundraising dinner on the top of the Marriott Hotel where guests will enjoy a spectacular view of fireworks on Parliament Hill.

Federal public safety minister Vic Toews wins bragging rights for having his chicken sandwich recipe selected by the Chicken Farmers of Canada to serve Canada Day revellers this year at Major’s Hill Park.

There has been much written about Ottawa’s newest brew pub, Big Rig Brewery, which is set to serve its first suds at 11 a.m. Tuesday when Ottawa Senators defenceman Chris Phillips, a principal investor, opens for business at 2750A Iris Street, near Greenbank Road.

The brews are not just for guzzling. He uses the beers to baste ingredients, in brines, and to inject extra flavour. “For me, beer is all about having fun,” he says from his Etobicoke home. Reader, a former corporate development chef in the mid-1990s for Loblaws and President’s Choice in Toronto, must have had tons of fun developing the recipes for his new cookbook Beerlicious, the Art of Grillin’ & Chillin’.

Organizers of this year’s Gold Medal Plates culinary competition in Ottawa appear to be cleaning house by selecting many new chefs for the next invitational event, to be held Nov. 5 at the National Arts Centre. And instead of the usual 10 contestants, the list has been pared back to eight — and not a female among them.

Award-winning Ottawa chef Matt Carmichael, 40, is leaving the kitchens at Restaurant E18hteen, Social and Sidedoor on May 19 to take a few days off and, later, perhaps set up his own restaurant in the nation’s capital.

For more than two years Curtis Luk, 28, has performed an unsung role as sous chef working out of public eyeshot at the Courtyard Restaurant in the ByWard Market. There, creativity in the kitchen is largely credited to executive chef Michael Hay, 27, who wields an iconoclastic hand, deconstructing and reassembling dishes in ways that make appreciative gastronomes gasp in his dining room.

A dozen discerning diners — none older than 12 — invaded the kitchens Sunday at Ottawa’s venerable Fairmont Château Laurier to review the hotel’s new healthy kid’s menu before it officially launches at Wilfrid’s restaurant later this week. And critique they most certainly did. Pint-sized patrons armed with happy-face scorecards sampled no fewer than 10 different items, most worthy of a kids’ version of Michelin stars for taste, creativity and presentation.

Ottawa chef Matthew Carmichael remembers well his intense days a decade ago as a disciple toiling in the kitchen of acclaimed Toronto chef Susur Lee. The pace was always frantic. The hours were excruciatingly long. And his mentor had no tolerance for anything ordinary.

You can bet corned beef and cabbage will be a favourite at the dinner table Saturday as the Irish, ex-pats and Irish wannabes the world over celebrate Paddy, fondly remembered patron saint of malted barley.

Sun, sand and seafood are on the itinerary at the two-day Ottawa Travel & Vacation Show opening Saturday, as no fewer than six guest chefs showcase everything from Newfoundland salt cod to the traditional cheesy casserole called Keeshi Yena from the white beaches of the Dutch island of Aruba.

Stir up a pot of robust homemade soup, and in my experience people will beat a path to the table. They do at my house, at any rate. Now, imagine enlisting a dozen Ottawa restaurants to create and serve their own renditions of liquid comfort — gold in a bowl, if you will — and chances are you can expect a stampede.

Tucker’s Marketplace took top honours with judges at the 21st annual ByWard Market Stew Cook-Off, part of the opening Winterlude festivities that drew a record crowd of almost 800 hungry participants Friday.

Like a cop using semaphore to herd downtown traffic, Troy Page spends hours each day directing no end of ravenous shoppers into one of two cafeteria lineups at the gargantuan IKEA store. By any measure the restaurant is massive, the crowds huge.